Noun: bolster
| Singular | bolster |
| Plural | bolsters |
Sample Sentences
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And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster, / This way the coverlet, another way the sheets. [c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:]
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["]Don't you know how [Joseph Mallord William] Turner spoils his pictures by introducing a man like a bolster in the foreground? Well, in actual life every landscape is spoilt by men of worse shapes still." / "You sound like a bolster with the stuffing out." They laughed. [1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter VII, in The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 88:]
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This Arm ſhall be a Bolſter for thy Head, / I'll fetch clean Straw to make my Soldier's Bed; / There, while thou ſleep'ſt, my Apron o'er thee hold, / Or with it patch thy Tent againſt the Cold. [[1715], [John] Gay, The What D’Ye Call It: A Tragi-comi-pastoral Farce, London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 11:]
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Its [the Ionic's column's] ancient capital is generally formed of two parallel bolsters [1826, Francesco Milizia, The Lives of Celebrated Architects Ancient and Modern:]
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My health too has been better since you took away that Montero cap. I have left off cayenned eggs and such bolsters to discomfort. [1867, Charles Lamb, Thomas Noon Talfourd, Works: Including His Most Interesting Letters, page 225:]
Nouns inflected like bolster
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English bolster, bolstre, from Old English bolster (“pillow”), from Proto-West Germanic *bolstr, from Proto-Germanic *bulstraz (“pillow, cushion”). Cognate with Scots bowster (“bolster”), West Frisian bulster (“mattress”), Dutch bolster (“husk, shell”), German Polster (“bolster, pillow, pad”), Swedish bolster (“soft mattress, bolster”), Icelandic bólstur (“pillow”). See: Middle English Nouns '
bolster', Old English Nouns '
bolster', Dutch Nouns '
bolster', German Nouns '
Polster', Swedish Nouns '
bolster', Icelandic Nouns '
bólstur'.
Verbs referencing "bolster"
German Nouns
Polster, Italian Nouns
poltrone, Italian Nouns
poltro.